Liverpool to Great Salt Lake

LaJean Purcell Carruth is a senior historian at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City. She is the coeditor of Mountain Meadows Massacre: Collected Legal Papers. Ronald G. Watt is retired after working thirty-five years for the archives of the LDS Church Historical Department. He is the author of four books, including The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt: First British Convert, Scribe for Zion.

"[Liverpool to Great Salt Lake is] an important contributor when considering how we can better understand the complexities and realities of the Latter-day Saint trek."-Samuel Mitchell, Dawning of a Brighter Day “LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt make mid-nineteenth-century pioneers speak as if ‘out of the dust,’ bringing us into contact with their hardships, humor, and faith.”-John G. Turner, author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet “Carruth and Watt expand greatly our understanding of the nineteenth-century Mormon experience, especially the emigrant trek to Utah, and the theology of Orson Pratt. Scholars and general readers alike will appreciate the book’s significance and substance.”-John Sillito, professor emeritus for libraries at Weber State University “Liverpool to Great Salt Lake is a delight. George D. Watt’s newly transcribed journal divides his international journey into three phases: ocean voyage, river steamer, and overland wagons, each marked by Watt’s penchant for observing both the unusual and the mundane. He notes births and deaths, Sunday observances and sometimes the lack thereof, gossip and its consequences, sermons and seasickness, broken pickle jars, pets as passengers, drowning oxen, people overboard, violent thunderstorms at sea and on the Great Plains, dead cattle, and the ‘sin’ of killing buffalo for sport. This and so much more make Watt’s journal a welcome addition to the migrant genre and an absolute pleasure to read.”-W. Paul Reeve, author of Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness “Although nineteenth-century migrants did not benefit from Watt’s journal, modern readers can glean much from its pages now. Liverpool to Great Salt Lake has a readable style that is easily accessible to general readers and will appeal to a broad audience. It is suitable for classroom adoption and is also a valuable source for academic research and specialists in the field who study and write about the Atlantic crossing, steamboat travel, and overland migration in the mid-nineteenth century.”-Jay H. Buckley, director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University

• List of IllustrationsPreface: George D. Watt-Out of Obscurity and into the LightAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Latter-day Saint GatheringGeorge D. Watt’s Pitman Shorthand and the Process of Transcription1. The Atlantic Ocean2. The Rivers3. The Trail4. The End of the Trail5. Sermons Delivered by Orson Pratt On Board the Ellen MariaAppendix 1: Style Guide for Transcriptions from Pitman ShorthandAppendix 2: Third Company of Ten of the John Brown CompanyAppendix 3: George D. Watt’s Wives and ChildrenAppendix 4: Two Reminiscent Accounts from Early Latter-day Saint Missionaries to EnglandAppendix 5: Yearly Numbers of People Traveling the Overland TrailsGlossary of Nautical, Steamboat, and River TermsNotesBibliographyIndex